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After the videos, Alice spoke. “Cynthia is my mother. Leighla is my daughter.” She looked into my eyes, and I got lost in hers. “I have a son. The hordes took him.” Her blue eyes became wells of sorrow. “I’m afraid,” She pulled away from me. “Of what I feel.”

I knew not to touch her then. It would hurt her. “I’m from the caves.” It was time to tell her. “But I lived alone. Alone.” Her eyes wouldn’t let me go. “I read the books of the ancients. I left the caves to find a new life.” I let my eyes return to hers. “And I have.” I tried to smile.

“Me?”

“No.” I couldn’t lie to her. “Me. And I’m afraid. Of what I feel.”

I slowly offered her my hand. She slowly reached for it, and what we both felt began to grow.

The eagles asked me to take Alice to a second place. As I did, Alice pulled me to a stop. “I can’t.”

I took both her hands in mine. “Why?”

“You don’t know, do you?”

I softly touched her cheek with my fingertips, as I closed my eyes. Alice pressed my hand against her face. And I saw her memories. She stood in the small glade the eagles told me about. She was much younger. I saw her speaking to a butterfly, her eyes closed, as she listened to the stories it shared with her.

I saw members of the horde pour through the walls of the glade, destroying it. I learned what they’d done to Alice that day. When she was just a child.

We returned to Old Phoenix, as the sun was setting. “Follow us!” the cats mewed. They led us to an old warehouse someone had converted into a theater. There were several tables along the East wall. The cats led us to one. “Sit! Sit!”

Alice whispered, “This is Josie’s place.”

A man in a tuxedo, carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses approached the table. He poured a drink for each of us. A woman sat down at a piano in the north-west corner of the warehouse, and started to play.

“Josie!” Alice grabbed my hand, as a woman in a wedding dress, and ballerina shoes pirouetted across the floor. She stopped before us. Alice sat, transfixed, staring at the woman, unable to speak.

The woman took my hands, and placed them on Alice’s. “Help her.” As she danced, I wondered how I could help Alice.